The Woman, 2011
A woman living wild in the mountains (Pollyanna McIntosh) is captured and held captive by "family man" Chris (Sean Bridgers), who claims that he wants to "civilize" her. As Chris forces his wife, Belle (Angela Bettis), daughter Peg (Lauren Ashley Carter), and blooming sociopath son Brian (Zach Rand) to help out in his little project, simmering family tensions come bubbling to the surface.
I have avoided this film for many years, mainly because of the attachment of Jack Ketchum's name. I've seen (I think) two movies based on Ketchum novels, and they've always really put me off with their almost fetishistic focus on women being abused for extended stretches of runtime. For me, it crossed a line between commenting on violence toward women and relishing in it.
On the other hand, I've quite enjoyed everything I've seen from Lucky McKee, the director, with
May and his Masters of Horror episode
Sick Girl being two highlights for me. Even his divisive
Tales of Halloween short "Ding Dong" made me laugh with its off-kilter approach.
Having now watched the movie, yeah, my initial instinct to stay away was probably the correct one.
There are concepts here that could have been interesting with a better execution. What Chris does to the Woman is an amplified version of what he is already doing to his own family: physical and verbal abuse, humiliation, controlling behavior, sexual abuse. There are also ideas here about how abuse is modeled for children and even implicitly condoned ("Boys will be boys"). All through the film we see an exploration of how people who are victims (like Belle and Peg) can become complicit in victimizing others, hardship driving a wedge between the women instead of making them allies.
So the ideas aren't terrible, but oof, the execution! To begin with, the tone is all over the place. The violence (including rape, torture, domestic abuse) is pretty intense for a dark comedy. And yet this is clearly aiming to be a dark comedy, with scenes like the Woman biting off Chris's finger and then derisively spitting out his wedding ring.
And going back to my reservations about Ketchum, that unfortunate male gaze element shows up here to a ridiculous degree. There's a big difference between the characters objectifying the Woman and the camera/audience objectifying her, and yet the film frequently slips into the latter dynamic. The absolute height of absurdity in all of this is an unnecessary full frontal shot of the nude Woman . . . where we discover that despite apparently never having brushed her teeth, the Woman has somehow procured herself a razor and a bikini wax. The film is happy to cover her in filth, blood, and dirt, but a hairy leg? That's a bridge too far!
McIntosh gives a fantastic performance as the feral Woman, and Bettis is equally good as the abused wife who is being edged toward her breaking point. I lay the issues with the character of Chris at the writers' feet, as he's such a caricature that I'm not sure any performance would have saved it.
But the film's pace is really off-beat, and not in a good way. We get extended stretches of a subplot where Peg is sad at school and her absurdly young teacher (Carlee Baker) is worried about her. (But not worried enough to follow any protocols that would actually help Peg!). There are these sequences that drag, but then they are punctuated by scenes of violence/torture that drag in their own way.
Even for a fan of McKee or the actors involved, I wouldn't recommend this one.